The channel's sources indicate that the attack on computers in the US and EU public sector was organized by the same group of hackers that hacked into the systems of SolarWinds customers last December.
According to Novaya Gazeta, citing data from Charles Karmakal, Senior Vice President and CTO of Mandiant Cybersecurity Firm, the new attack turned out to be very large-scale. She touched upon several government agencies at once, as well as organizations that deal with political and foreign policy issues.
Along with government and related organizations, the attack also targeted technology providers serving the systems of organizations in the United States and Europe.
Earlier it was reported that last year's attack on SolarWinds, which supplies software to US government agencies, negatively affected the work of Microsoft, among others, the US Treasury Department, state governments, the State Department and other structures were affected.
The State Department said that hackers associated with Russia were the perpetrators of the attack.
Based on the results of the investigation, US President Joseph Biden signed a decree on sanctions against Russia. He explained the introduction of restrictive measures by the past cyber attack on the US public sector and Russia's interference in the American elections.
The accusations against Russia sparked a diplomatic scandal that led to the mutual expulsion of Russian and American embassies. Each of the units lost 10 diplomats.
After that, arrests of IT specialists began in Russia. One of the most notorious was the arrest in Moscow of the founder of the cybersecurity company Group-IB Ilya Sachkov. The businessman, arrested for two months, is suspected of high treason. Sachkov faces 12 to 20 years. The materials of the case, as well as mainly in the investigations related to treason, are classified.
Sachkov himself did not admit guilt, and his mother wrote an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, demanding an honest investigation and the release of her son.